They were five sweet little girls but they shared one deadly addiction to drugs - which led to the Suffolk Strangler

By ANDREW LEVY

Last updated at 00:05 22 February 2008

The victims of the Suffolk Strangler came from a range of backgrounds but had one link - their dependence on drugs. Some of their families had no idea about their addiction until they were murdered.

Yesterday relatives of the victims said the killer should face the same fate at those he murdered and called for the reintroduction of the death penalty.

Although Tania Nicol's father says he has forgiven the killer, other members of the family issued a statement which said: "We would like to say justice has been done but we are afraid that whilst five young lives have been cruelly ended, the person responsible will be kept warm, nourished and protected. In no way has justice been done.

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"Where a daughter and the other victims were given no human rights by the monster, his will be guarded by the establishment at great cost to the taxpayers of this country and emotionally to the bereaved families."

Here we profile the young women whose lives slipped pitifully downhill until they met a murderer.

PAULA CLENNELL

The uncontrollable need of the victims to feed their drug addictions was dramatically illustrated by Paula Clennell.

A serial killer was on the loose but she insisted she had to continue working in order to pay for her fixes.

Under the assumed name of Kelly, she revealed she had been attacked before.

She told a TV interviewer: "It makes me sick to the stomach but if you need the money badly, it's better than going out thieving."

Afterwards, Paula walked back to the red light area. Less than 72 hours later she was dead.

Paula grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, with her parents, Brian, a civil engineer who worked for oil and gas companies in the Middle East, mother Isabella, and sister, Alice, now 29.

Her parents divorced and she began experimenting with cannabis when she was just 13.

Paula moved with her mother to Norwich and later Ipswich before leaving home at 16 to move in with her boyfriend, Elton Norris.

The pair started taking crack and Paula began selling her body at the age of 20.

Mr Norris said: "It was the only way she could fund her addiction. Some weeks she could blow thousands of pounds on drugs."

Paula's grim lifestyle led to her three children being taken into care.

In a letter to her mother weeks before she died, she revealed she was dreading Christmas.

"Instead of being a happy day of joy and togetherness it's only a dark, lonely and depressing day," she wrote.

Paula's misery ended in 2006. Her body was found in Nacton on December 10.

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ANNELI ALDERTON

The turning point for Anneli was the death of her father Roy, a computer programmer who succumbed to lung cancer when she was 17.

The heartbroken teenager, known as Anni, fled from the funeral and shortly afterwards moved into a flat, falling under the influence of a man her family describes as a "sexual predator" who introduced her to drugs.

From there, she slipped into prostitution and was three months pregnant when she died at the age of 24.

Anni spent an idyllic five years of her childhood in Cyprus.

The family returned to England in 1997 and Anni joined Copleston High School in Ipswich. Her stunning figure and striking green eyes made her popular with the boys.

But the aspiring model started taking hard drugs and spent the following years in and out of prison. Mrs Alderton last saw her daughter alive on December 3, 2006 when she arrived with Christmas presents.

Mrs Alderton, who split from Anni's father, said her daughter left to catch a train.

"She shouted, 'Goodbye, Mum. I love you'. I didn't answer."

The reason she ignored her own child? Anni had bleached her brown hair - which her mother had learned from experience indicated she was back "on the game" to pay for drugs.

Like the other victims, she probably died in Wright's bedroom, adorned with giant cuddly toys. They included teddy bears and a 3ft-tall monkey holding a Coca Cola bottle.

Her body was found on December 10 in woodland in Nacton, arranged in the shape of a crucifix.

Her boyfriend, Sam Jefford, said they had been "overjoyed" when she became pregnant.

"We were going to call him Harry George Alderton. We both wanted to sort our lives out and Harry would have been the reason to do it."

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ANNETTE NICHOLLS

At 25 Annette had a stable life, a close-knit family, and was a qualified beauty therapist with a long list of loyal clients.

But "almost overnight" she became a shambling, drug-addled wreck.

When her life was extinguished in December 2006, she was the eldest of Wright's victims.

Her cousin, Tanya Nicholls, 38, said: "She used to be such an absolutely outstanding person with the most lovely personality. She was stunningly beautiful both inside and out.

"But almost overnight she got into heroin and it changed her. It was like flicking a light switch."

Friends said that Annette, known as Netty, began her descent into drugs after she left her council house to move into a smart new housing association property.

Soon, her house was repossessed and she began living with friends and working the streets to pay for hits. Deeply ashamed of what had become of her, she hid the truth from her parents, Rosemary and John.

Among those who did know about her lifestyle was her terminally ill uncle Peter, 59, who had a visit from the mother-of-one weeks before her death.

"She came to see me when she heard I was ill," he said. "She rushed up and gave me a big hug. She'd been such a happy little girl - and deep down she still was a lovely girl."

Netty was last seen on December 8 and her body was found four days later a few miles away in Levington.

It too had been placed in a crucifix shape, arms outstretched.

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Wright's bedroom, where some or all of the girls could have died surrounded by teddy bears

TANIA NICOL

As a child, Tania's dream was to find fame as a member of a girl band and she would tirelessly practise dance routines with her friends.

Tania grew up on the outskirts of Ipswich with her mother and younger brother Aaron, now 16. She once met Prince Andrew when she was a member of the Sea Cadets.

She talked about becoming a hairdresser. By 17, however, she had moved into a hostel, where she started dabbling with heroin.

She moved back home in December 2005 and her mother Kerry Nicol, 48, told Ipswich Crown Court how she had found syringes in her daughter's room but accepted Tania's assurances they belonged to a friend.

Tania also claimed she was earning money as a hairdresser and barmaid but in fact had started working in Ipswich's massage parlours.

By 2005, however, she had fallen out of favour with the parlours when they became concerned about her drug addiction.

Just 19 when she was murdered, she was last seen wearing pink spangly shoes and tight, cut-off jeans.

Her body, naked except for some cheap jewellery, was found in a brook at Copdock Mill, just outside Ipswich, on December 8.

After learning of her death, Tania's father, church caretaker Jim Duell, 60, who is separated from her mother, described her as a "caring, loving, sensitive girl" who was finding out about herself when she came into contact with drugs.

"Unfortunately, drugs took her away into her own secret world - a world that neither of us were aware of," he said.

GEMMA ADAMS

Pretty, popular and from a solid, middle-class family, Gemma had a privileged childhood.

Brought up in a large, detached house in the village of Kesgrave near Ipswich, she was a keen horse rider, played the piano and was a member of the Brownies.

Her parents Brian, 54, a businessman, and mother Gail, 55, had high hopes for her. She even told them she wanted to join the police.

"She was good company, bright and intelligent," Mr Adams said. "If you asked her to do anything she would do it well. We never had any rows with her at home."

Gemma's downfall was set in motion when she was 15 and a pupil at Kesgrave High School. She started dating another pupil, Jon Simpson, and the pair moved in together after she left school at 16.

Friends said the couple dabbled in cannabis before becoming sucked into a downward spiral.

Gemma's father said: "I suppose she thought it was a bit of fun, that she'd get a bit of a high and then carry on as normal."

By 17, the sweet little girl once devoted to her dog, Holly, was regularly taking heroin and crack.

When the terrible truth emerged, her parents provided a powerful anchor that gave her the strength to try to fight her addiction.

Gemma managed to complete a GNVQ at Suffolk College and worked for an insurance company. But she began slipping away for long lunch breaks and was regularly off sick.

She was sacked in 2004. Her increasingly desperate parents took her to see doctors and the local community drug rehabilitation team.

"It's every parent's worst nightmare. Once your child is involved with hard drugs, your heart is already broken," said Mr Adams, who has two other children.

Gemma took up prostitution. Her body was found on December 2 in a brook at Hintlesham, seven miles from Ipswich.

Mr Adams said his world "just crumbled" when police revealed Gemma's secret life.

"We never knew she was working as a prostitute until she went missing," he said. "We think she completely cut us out because she didn't want us to know what was going on and the depth of her problem."

She had fought the cravings for heroin until the end, it has emerged. A local outreach worker said: "We'd got Gemma on a course and we thought she was in with a chance. But someone else got to her first."